Takeaways from Heat’s win over Hawks behind most efficient offensive performance of season

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 130-128 win over the Atlanta Hawks (32-33) on Monday night at Miami-Dade Arena to improve to 2-2 on its six-game homestand. The Heat (35-31) continues the homestand on Wednesday against the Cleveland Cavaliers:

After Saturday’s win over Atlanta, the Heat completed the sweep of its important two-game set with the Hawks in Miami thanks to its most efficient three-point shooting and offensive performance of the season.

“It was important to get this two-game set,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We knew the context of it. We knew the importance of getting these two games, so we had at least the [head-to-head tiebreaker] over Atlanta 3-1.”

The Heat, which entered with the NBA’s third-worst team three-point percentage at 33.4 percent this season, shot a season-best 16 of 29 (55.2 percent) from beyond the arc on Monday. The Hawks finished 9 of 29 (31 percent) from three-point range.

The result: The Heat outscored the Hawks 48-27 on threes to earn the comeback win after falling behind by as many as 15 points in the first half.

The Heat is actually in the middle of a mini three-point shooting surge that it hopes continues after its season-long shooting slump. Miami is 41 of 89 (46.1 percent) from beyond the arc in the last three games.

Behind that outside shooting, the Heat overcame a slow start to pull ahead 101-100 with 9:38 left in the fourth quarter. That marked Miami’s first lead since early in the opening period.

The Heat pulled ahead by as many as seven points in the fourth quarter, but it again came down to the final seconds.

With the Hawks in possession of the ball and trailing by just three points with 32.8 seconds to play, the Heat was able to force star guard Trae Young into a costly turnover with 23.4 seconds remaining. After an intentional foul, Jimmy Butler hit both free throws to extend the Heat’s lead to five with 16.6 seconds left to seal the victory.

Six Heat players finished with double-digit made threes on Monday.

Victor Oladipo tied a season-high with four made threes on 4-of-7 shooting from deep.

Duncan Robinson shot 3 of 4 from beyond the arc. It marked the most three-pointers he has hit in a game since also making three in a Dec. 30 loss to the Denver Nuggets.

Tyler Herro closed 3 of 8 on threes.

Caleb Martin shot 2 of 2 from three-point range.

Max Strus shot 2 of 3 on threes.

Gabe Vincent finished 2 of 5 from three-point range.

The Heat’s defense was an issue early on, allowing the Hawks to open 11 of 12 (91.7 percent) from the field on their way to closing the first quarter with 43 points on 19-of-25 (76 percent) shooting from the field and 4-of-8 (50 percent) shooting on threes with just one turnover. Atlanta led 43-30 at the end of the opening period.

The 43 points represented the most that the Heat has allowed in a single quarter in almost two years — since the Milwaukee Bucks scored 46 points against the Heat in the first quarter of Game 2 of their first-round playoff series on May 24, 2021.

But the Heat’s offense was good enough that the most the Hawks were able to expand their lead to in the first half was 15 points. Miami closed the second quarter on a 31-21 run to cut the deficit to just five entering halftime.

The Heat totaled 63 points on an ultra-efficient 54.1 percent shooting from the field, 7-of-12 (58.3 percent) shooting from three-point range and 16-of-19 (84.2 percent) shooting from the foul line in the first two quarters.

“Everybody was all pissed off and angry in that first, and rightly so,” Spoelstra said. “But you do have to give credit to Atlanta. They’re an explosive offensive team, but we stayed the course. I thought it was really important that we got that thing under five going into halftime. From there, it just becomes a great competitive NBA basketball game going down the stretch.”

The Heat tied the score up a few times in the third quarter but was never able to pull ahead, as the Hawks entered the fourth quarter with a four-point lead.

The Heat went on to win the final quarter 38-32 on its way to the victory.

Between the Heat’s hot three-point shooting, 32-of-37 (86.5 percent) effort at the foul line and a low 11-turnover night, it posted a season-best single-game offensive rating of 132.7 points scored per 100 possessions on Monday. That’s especially noteworthy because Miami’s offense has been among the league’s worst this season, entering with the league’s fifth-worst offensive rating at 110.8 points scored per 100 possessions.

“The aggressiveness. That’s our deal. We have to be aggressive,” Spoelstra said of the key to the Heat’s offensive success. “We have to set the tone with our paint attacks and we can do it in a bunch of different ways. If we do any one thing too often, that’s not a good thing. But we do have to stay consistent to that attack and we had our paint touches, we had our rim attacks, we had our free throws. We were able to get Jimmy to the line, Bam to the line. And that just sets up the other part of our symbiotic relationship, our shooters spreading the floor and knocking down shots. A lot of those came off of paint touches first.”

Butler scored a team-high 26 points for the Heat on 8-of-14 shooting from the field and 10-of-12 shooting from the foul line, nine rebounds and nine assists.

Bam Adebayo recorded 16 points, seven rebounds, five assists, three steals and one block.

Herro added 13 points, four rebounds and three assists.

“We were working for open ones,” Adebayo said. “Nobody was trying to take tough shots. Everybody was in a rhythm, so shots were falling tonight.”

After scoring a season-low eight points in Saturday’s loss to the Heat, Young closed Monday’s loss with 25 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the field for the Hawks.

With forward Kevin Love missing his first game since singing with Miami on Feb. 20, the Heat used its 22nd different starting lineup of the season.

The Heat opened Monday’s game with a lineup of Vincent, Herro, Butler, Strus and Adebayo. Strus replaced the injured Love in the starting lineup, as Spoelstra opted to keep Martin on the bench after he recently moved to a reserve role following Love’s signing.

“Max has shown that kind of versatility that he can shift between either unit and have an impact,” Spoelstra said. “He was the original plug when we had injuries anyway. I don’t even want to say that he’s a facsimile of Kevin because he was already doing that. But the offensive flow and everything with the first unit didn’t have to change at all with Max.”

While Monday marked the first time that the five-man combination of Vincent, Herro, Butler, Strus and Adebayo have started a game this season, they had played together before. This lineup entered with an impressive plus/minus of plus-34 in 32 minutes this season.

But that trend did not continue on Monday, as this group was outscored by 11 points in 12 minutes together.

Love missed Monday’s game with a right rib contusion. Spoelstra said he does not expect Love’s injury to be “a long-term thing” and Love felt good enough to go through a pregame workout on the Miami-Dade Arena court.

The Heat was also without Kyle Lowry (left knee soreness) and Nikola Jovic (G League assignment) against the Hawks.

The Heat’s bench has not been a strength this season, but it was on Monday.

The Heat entered with the NBA’s second-lowest scoring bench with 27.3 points per game this season.

But the Heat’s reserves stepped up against the Hawks to combine for 59 points on 17-of-30 (56.7 percent) shooting from the field and 9-of-13 (69.2 percent) shooting on threes to make up for the starting unit’s issues. Miami’s bench outscored Atlanta’s reserves 59-37.

“I thought our second unit was outstanding,” Spoelstra said.

Oladipo scored 22 points and Martin scored 21 points off the Heat’s bench. Robinson finished with 14 points and Cody Zeller contributed two points as the other two reserves used Monday.

Oladipo, Martin and Zeller have been consistent members of the Heat’s bench rotation recently. But Robinson had not played in three of the previous four games before stepping into Strus’ spot in the bench rotation on Monday.

Each of the Heat’s four reserves posted positive plus/minuses, combining to outscore the Hawks by 5.7 points per 100 possessions in their minutes.

It was a milestone night for Heat second-year center Omer Yurtseven, who was available to play in a game on Monday for the first time this season.

Yurtseven missed the first 65 games of the season after a preseason left ankle injury forced him to undergo surgery in November.

After nearly four months of rehabbing from the surgery, Yurtseven was available and on the Heat’s active roster for the first time this season. But his Heat season debut will have to wait because he did not play on Monday against the Hawks despite being in uniform.

Zeller has impressed in his first two weeks with the Heat, filling a need as a reliable and impactful backup center.

Zeller’s emergence could make it difficult for Yurtseven to earn a consistent role in the rotation as the third center on the depth chart behind Adebayo and Zeller.

But Yurtseven, who will be a restricted free agent this offseason, did have an encouraging weekend in the G League ahead of his NBA return.

Yurtseven, 24, averaged 27.5 points, 13.5 rebounds and four assists per game while shooting 48.9 percent from the field and 3 of 12 (25 percent) on threes in two games with the Skyforce on Friday and Saturday during his G League assignment.

“That was an important step,” Spoelstra said of Yurtseven’s short G League stint. “He’s been doing a lot behind the scenes for the last three weeks, months. So I know he wanted to check this box, we wanted to check the box and the encouraging thing is he was able to do that — five-on-five pretty intense practice and then two games back-to-back and then he was able to go through the shootaround and then did a bunch of player development after the shootaround [Monday morning]. Physically, he was fine. So that’s a really good sign.”

The Heat gained some separation from the Hawks in the Eastern Conference standings, but still has some work to do to avoid the play-in tournament.

With two straight wins over the Hawks, the seventh-place Heat extended its lead over over the eighth-place Hawks to 2.5 games in the East standings.

But the Heat remains two games behind the sixth-place Brooklyn Nets and four games behind the fifth-place New York Knicks. Both the Nets and Knicks were idle on Monday.

With only 16 regular-season games left on its schedule, the Heat needs to keep winning to escape the play-in tournament. To do that, Miami would have to finish as a top-six playoff seed in the East.